why are south facing gardens better than north facing in the uk?

Glaucus said:
because north facing gardens suck. get essentially zero sun.
currently last two foot of garden has sun, and that wont last long, after that nothing but shade for the rest of the day.
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North facing gardens rock... especially when they are long so you can lounge in the hammock and when it gets to hot pop back closer to the house to cool off and chill around a fire pit.
 
In some circumstances south facing gardens get more sun, but it depends on the surrounding properties, trees, fences etc etc etc. My last house had a 100ft NE facing garden and it was sunnier than one on the other side of the road that was only 30ft and had a big group of trees bordering the property.

It's also a way an estate agent might try and up the saleability of the property. Seriously, if you read some of the hyperbole, empty superlatives and borderline lies that some of our clients write in their brochure text, you'd probably have stroke!
 
I would much rather have sun in the afternoon, early evening than the morning. Gardeners probably prefer morning sun but for my garden activities, drinking, lounging and bbqing, afternoon rocks.
 
We have an east facing garden, but it's around 170ft (50m) long, so there's sun whenever really.

It's quite nice to have some shade from the house in the hot afternoons, though, with the option of sun if you move further away.

Our old house had a small ~20ft east facing garden. That one was great in the height of summer because it was a cool refuge from the pounding afternoon heat. Wouldn't have actually wanted sun all evening - the front of the house, with the sun, was unbearable.
 
my garden faces south east, not ideal but not that bad either. south west is more preferable than south east. true south being the better of the 3. however it's still better than true east or west and any north facing garden so i feel like out of the 8 possible options I have the third best. my only issue is that i have a lot of trees planted for privacy by the previous owner. a lot of these trees simply aren't needed. none of my neighbours have them for instance. they block a lot of the sun which defeats the whole point.

so privacy vs sun?

i'm planning on getting rid of half of them over the next couple of months. anyone know of a decent felling axe? i will burn the wood in a chiminea which is why i'm going down the axe route.
 
Depends on the size of the garden. Have a modern hose with a tiny garden and you get no sun in your back garden. Have an older house with a bigger garden and it's not as much of an issue as the gardens are usually much larger.

The only real negative with a north facing garden if it's a reasonable size is any patio/deck attached to the house will not get much sun, but you can compromise on that by having two areas, one further away and in the sun.

It will also depend on whether you prefer the sun in your living room and front bedrooms (where is the master?) during the day and in the evening, or whether you want the back in sun. I had a west facing bedroom at on time and it was always a cooker in the evening, just as you want it to be cool.
 
Psycho Sonny said:
my garden faces south east, not ideal but not that bad either. south west is more preferable than south east. true south being the better of the 3. however it's still better than true east or west and any north facing garden so i feel like out of the 8 possible options I have the third best. my only issue is that i have a lot of trees planted for privacy by the previous owner. a lot of these trees simply aren't needed. none of my neighbours have them for instance. they block a lot of the sun which defeats the whole point.

so privacy vs sun?

i'm planning on getting rid of half of them over the next couple of months. anyone know of a decent felling axe? i will burn the wood in a chiminea which is why i'm going down the axe route.
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keep the trees, that way you can still run around naked in your garden without your neighbours seeing you lol

nah in all seriousness privacy is special. It takes decades for these trees to grow but moments to destroy them. How I see this situation is that if the trees don't hurt you or cause you problems why would u want to get rid of them? unless you have some type of dispute with your neighbours I'd keep 'em :)
 
You want a southern facing garden for more sun. Mine faces south-west, which is great because we get the sun nicely in the evening.

ubersonic said:
It's a policy Thatcher brought in, she never cared much for the north.
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Hahahaha!!! Excellent, have an internet cookie.
 
psd99 said:
keep the trees, that way you can still run around naked in your garden without your neighbours seeing you lol

nah in all seriousness privacy is special. It takes decades for these trees to grow but moments to destroy them. How I see this situation is that if the trees don't hurt you or cause you problems why would u want to get rid of them? unless you have some type of dispute with your neighbours I'd keep 'em :)
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it's a fairly new build around 1997 so garden is okay in terms of size, not huge but not too small either.

the trees are doing more harm than good IMO.

i won't be getting rid of all of them. just the pointless ones. we have a large fence at the back of the garden. possibly 6 feet tall. no need for trees there at all, the fence is plenty big enough for privacy. at the sides the fence is smaller say about 4-5 foot. 1 of the trees is growing over the shed and being blocked by another tree beside it. it's an apple tree so i want to keep it however the taller one beside it will need to go so it grows upwards rather than sideways over the shed trying to reach the light.

possibly 6 trees in total i'm thinking of getting rid of. i'll be keeping the 2 apple trees as well as the 3 giving me privacy to the right but they will need to be trimmed back every year which is going to be a pain.
 
if trees give pain.. they are in the wrong place.. cut them and don't feel guilty, and watch the apples, they can go monstrous, you end up with loads of tiny apples and a huge tree.. seen that before. Trees are like any plant, they are there for your pleasure/ harvest, if they deviate, be brutal.. Trick with apples is at 'first drop' remove half.. the rest will grow decent size, it's a bit like grape-growing. Ideally with 'orchard' trees like apple cherry plum etc, when they get to about 12 foot, take the top out so they spread, and you aren't dancing on a 15 foot ladder..
 
I've been on some new estates where any garden didn't have the sun at peak sun height times, that's just how close they are.
Had an offer accepted on house with a pretty close to true north garden. Looking at Google earth it gets sun in most the garden at mid-dayish and the seller says she usually sits about a third down in the evening in the sun.
The garden has a sort of village/feel to it and every house has a long garden.
Looking at sun set and location website sun almost rises north-east and set north-west in the summer so hopefully may be a nice wee sun trap while offering optional shade.
 
It really depends on the surrounding geography.

If you've got a 1 story cottage and a south facing garden which backs onto a 6-story tenement block, then you'll probably get far less sun in your garden than if it was north facing.
 
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